The Earth Says: It's Safe to Begin Again

Welcome to the Autumn 2025 season of the show! This season's theme is "Living the Autumn," and in today's episode I'm sharing some thoughts about what it could look like to allow the Autumn to live through us, how that work begins now, and why this late Summer period is an excellent time to start over in an area of our daily life. 

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Welcome to a Wild New Work, a podcast about how to compost capitalism and the norms of dominant culture and answer the soulful callings of these times we live in, which includes the call to deepen our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother, writer, teacher and guide. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I'm your host today.

Hi, friend, and welcome back to the show. It's been almost two months since I released a new episode. I took some time off in August and I'm feeling renewed. I got some really good camping time in. I had a chance to fall out of. Clock time, which I think is one of the real gifts of the summer season. I got to eat wild berries, swim in wild waters, and just do the things that I think make life worth living. And I hope you got some of that this summer too, or are still getting some of that. It doesn't have to end. But I wanted to take some time off in August, especially because I wanted to ensure that I had space to really come into the fullness of the summer season. And now that's happened, and now something different is going to emerge.

Some other part of the cycle is coming. So here we are in late Summer, but the autumn equinox is very close. It's on September 22nd this year, so we are in the in-between period when it's not completely summer and it's not completely fall. It is both of them at the same time. They are co-mingling to create this really interesting period where we see some glimmers of each of them every day. And in today's episode, I want to introduce the autumn season of the podcast and share a little bit about the topic I've chosen for this season of the show, which is Living the Autumn. I know many of you love the fall. I love the fall. It's my favorite season.

I was born on the autumn equinox and it's just an incredible time on the landscape. And today I wanna talk about how we can meet that season in the best possible way, given where we are and the constraints that we're working with, and share some things to keep in mind as we come into the autumn season.

And my intention is for this episode to leave you feeling refreshed and inspired to start over in any areas of your life or in any ways that you feel like you need to. That's really the gift of this last breath of the summer season. In terms of announcements that I wanna share before we dive in, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the work I'm doing this fall more later, because it coincides with the themes of the autumn season.

But for now, I just wanna make sure you know that the Autumn edition of the Living the Seasons Journal is now available and it's available to ship. Worldwide. I've made some big changes to the journal, primarily like a much meatier introduction that includes what it means to live in alignment with the seasons, how to work with your wise and well ancestors through the autumn season.

The element. Ritual and more. And there's also some beautiful new artwork featured on the cover and interior, and this came together really beautifully and easily and sweetly with someone named Sylvia Eden, who is the artist behind Leodrune Press, L-E-O-D-R-U-N-E. I encourage you to look them up on Instagram or Etsy.

Sylvia writes beautiful booklets about the seasons and is also an incredible artist and has blessed the living the seasons journals with some new artwork and type and interior graphics that I think make it an even richer experience. So if you haven't done the Living the Seasons Journal yet, either last Autumn or in the subsequent seasons, and you would like a container by which to move through this season so that you're not just being dragged along by capitalist time or feeling like you're missing it, missing the richness of this season. I encourage you to get a journal. It will take you week by week through what I see as the major medicine of that time and help you observe the landscape around you so that you can see what you're being gifted and shown by the beings that are right around you.

Because the autumn season can look very different depending on where you are and what kind of ecosystem you're in. So. I'm using a new platform this time for printing and shipping in part because I just couldn't manage that myself this year, but also because those of you outside the US can now get a copy and just pay $5 for shipping instead of a lot more when I was trying to do it.

So I hope you'll check it out. You can find it at a wild new work.com. On the homepage or at books, buy slash megan leatherman and I'll put those links in the show notes. I will say the shipping and printing is a lot. Slower than something like Amazon. So if you would like to have a copy in time for the autumn Equinox, I would place your order soon.

My next announcement is that I'll be hosting a live class this Thursday, September 18th. It's called What It Means to Live Seasonally, and I want to get down into the brass tacks. Its Virgo season. I wanna look at the nitty gritty day to day of what it actually means to live in alignment with the seasons and how to do that. You can learn more about that class at a wild new work.com/events or at the link in the show notes.

And finally, I want to invite you into Eagle Creek if this podcast is a source of support for you. Eagle Creek is a membership for lack of. A better word, but it's essentially a way that people can help to unlock the commons, which is this idea that, you know, not everyone can afford to contribute to every artist making a podcast or writing things, but if you are passionate or you feel grateful for the work that's happening here, and you have the means to contribute.

You could become an Eagle Creek member and help this work get to everyone for free so that regardless of someone's ability to pay, they can, you know, receive this podcast and the newsletter I write. So if you are really moved or grateful for the work that I'm doing and you want to come into another kind of reciprocity, I welcome you in to learn about Eagle Creek.

You can do that at a wild new work.com/eagle-creek. And thank you to all of you who are current Eagle Creek members in helping to unlock the commons of this learning. Okay, so why don't we settle into our opening invocation and then we'll talk about living the autumn. So wherever you are, I encourage you to take a big, deep breath.

It would probably be good to let out a sigh.

You might wanna feel your feet on the floor or your seat in the chair, feeling the weight of your body being tugged toward the earth. Just letting that happen. May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with.

I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the molten Noma Cowlitz Bands of Chinook and Clackamas Tribes among many others. Who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on? May this episode be one small stitch in the great reweaving of right relationship that so many indigenous teachers are calling us into, and so it is.

Well, I wanna talk first about the theme for the autumn season of the show. For every season of the show, which corresponds to the seasons. Of course, naturally I pick a sort of guiding theme as a way to like, contain and help me just feel focused to try to make the material more potent than if we were just, you know.

Talking about whatever whim caught me that day. So I chose living the autumn for this season because so many of us love the autumn season, rightly so. It's absolutely incredible the colors, the transformation that takes place on the land, what it does to our beings and our bodies. But I find myself this year being drawn to coming into a deeper relationship with it.

Maybe so many of us love it because it is exactly the medicine that we need in this culture. In these times, we need the medicine of endings release. Darkening seeing the beauty of decay and death. And sometimes though, can, those can just feel like words that are just sort of empty. You know, we're very used to and accustomed to observing nature as separate from us that the seasons happen outside of us.

Oh look, there's autumn. You know, there's the pumpkin patch, there's the pumpkin spice tea, but it's not living in me. It's happening outside of us, outside of our homes. But what if we could actually live the autumn season? Like what if the season came alive in us through us, that its medicine was happening inside of us and outside of us, and that that was in some kind of reciprocal, symbiotic relationship so that we're pulled deeper into the lessons that.

Are trying to be embodied every autumn season, and I'll talk more about this in this week's live class that I mentioned and on the podcast next week, but I believe that the seasons are expressed through the behaviors of the beings on the land, and that includes us. It wouldn't be the autumn season if the deciduous.

Trees were not dropping their leaves. If the leaves weren't changing color, it wouldn't be or feel like the autumn season. If the fungi weren't popping up, if the animals weren't getting quiet, if the bears weren't eating a lot more before they hibernate. Those behaviors, those changes are what make. The autumn season come alive.

So what if rather than just enjoying watching all of that happen, what if we became a part of that chorus? What if we lived into the story of beautiful endings? Between now and the winter solstice in December. What if we became the darkening, the rain, the cold, the decay. Not just as a thought experiment, but literally becoming beautiful in ways we never knew we could because we are letting go of all our leaves of all that cannot come into the winter with us.

What if we became quiet? At the edges of the days, like the darkness invites us to, what if we pulled up all of the rotting decaying matter that we find in our lives? We pull it out, dump it on the ground, and finally ritualistically allow it to become compost. These are things that we can do. We have the ancestral memory, the agency, to live the autumn season, not just observe it or have fun at a pumpkin patch and then continue acting like it's spring and summer, pushing and doing a ton, but living becoming the autumn season.

So to aid you in doing that. We are gonna be talking in the podcast about what it means to live seasonally, how to compost capitalism, and the ways that it has made a home in us. We will talk about divination and calling in wisdom from the other side of the veil, and I have some really amazing guests coming on to talk about the magic of the nut trees living intimately with the earth and more so.

I'm really excited about what this season holds for the show, and I'm also gonna be leading a free four week darkness practice between like late November and the winter solstice, which I have done every year for the last six years. But I wanna go big this time because I feel how intensely we need that.

And, uh, so I'll be talking a little bit about that on the show. And then if you get my newsletters, you will also be given more information about that soon. So that's the plan. We are going to live the autumn, let it become us in new ways, even if it's just small to start. This work does not have to be heavy handed or mean that your entire life changes or like, oh shit, I have to go buy a bunch of new.

Autumn decor or you know, buy a ton of supplies to harvest herbs or make jam. No, it can be really little. It often just requires an internal openness, a willingness, and. The ability to pay more attention to how the land is changing. That goes a long way, and every year you get another chance. Assuming you live, which is such a gift, you get another chance to become the autumn season and it can build on each other year after year.

So the work that I'm gonna be doing and the containers that I'm gonna be holding this season are very much in alignment with this theme. They always are. I can't imagine doing work out of alignment with the seasons, but these, there are two containers in particular that I'm making to help you go deeper if you want to.

The first one is called Meant for More. And this is here. If you are sensing that it's time for you to experience a meaningful personal vocational transformation in alignment with the Autumn season, meant for more is both a small group. Program that people can go through that lasts about five months, I think we meet 11 times, and it's also available as a one-on-one process that is about the same timeline, but can be customized based on your needs and your schedule, and meant for more, whether it's through the small group process or one-on-one.

Is where I offer pretty much everything I know right now about how to find your right path, how to garner incredible support for your journey so that you don't have to work so hard at this, how to live into your gifts and how to do that and make this work inside of capitalism. It is both magical and very practical.

We cover working with your wise and well ancestors, what your gifts are. How to work with your primary element, what to do when things feel terrible or you feel stuck. So it's an absolute joy to offer this work, both in the small group and one-on-one, and I welcome you into that container. If you feel like it's time for you, we start September 25th.

So not long, and there are payment plans available. If you know that you'd like to do this work one-on-one, you can set up a free consultation so we can meet and I can learn more about what's coming up for you and let you know if this seems like it would be a good fit. You can learn more about all of that at a wild new work.com/guidance.

The other container that I'll be holding this fall is composting capitalism. I know a lot of you have taken this class. This is an eight week journey into the origins of capitalism in Western Europe. In the 15 hundreds or so, we move through Sylvia Federici's incredible book, Caliban and the Witch, where she talks about why the origins of capitalism.

Have to include the European witch hunts and the relationship between capitalism and the witch. So we move through the book, but I also talk about three major antidotes to capitalism, folk magic, land reconnection, and generous exchange. It is a really unique dynamic. Online class. I've been grateful for feedback that it is not a class that feels like other online classes that might be kind of dry.

It's, I think, immediately applicable to you and your life and helps you understand why it feels so yucky to live this way, that you're not crazy if you don't like having to earn an income. It's a way for you to make sense. Why things are so bad for so many people on the planet right now, and what you can do in response to that.

That's not about pushing or resisting, but about allowing this rotten system to just rot right, right back into the earth. So I welcome you into this class. I'm also feeling like this might be the last time this class is offered in this way. I don't know exactly what is shifting, but something is shifting.

So I was planning on offering it again in the spring, but I just. I don't know. That's kind of a question mark right now. So if you would like to take it and you know that you've been wanting to, but it just hasn't fit, I welcome you into this round. We start October 1st, and um, you can learn more at a while.

New work.com/composting-capitalism and payment plans are also available for this and. Uh, you can get a 50% discount or even a 100% discount on the class registration fee if you need it. This work is available to all, whether you can pay for it or not. So that wasn't meant to be like a, an ad nestled into the center of the episode, but that's where it fit the best for me to tell you about these containers because they really do relate to the work of composting and transformation that is so present for us in the autumn.

Season. So the autumn is coming. We know that, but we haven't even crossed over the autumn equinox yet on September 22nd. So what are we invited to do right now in these last few days of the late summer period? The Equinox happens twice a year, and it's the point when the sun's reach across the planet is about equal.

So both hemispheres are receiving the same amount of sunlight, and this equanimity lasts for a little bit, but then it starts to tip after the equinox. So after the autumn equinox, the earth, the northern hemisphere will begin to tip away from the sun and into increasing darkness. For me right now, it's kind of feeling like we have been on a pilgrimage this summer.

We've been on some kind of journey, and now it's time to return home and make medicine. From that experience, we're still in the place where we've been on our pilgrimage. We're still in the experience, but we've already begun. Saying goodbye to people, tying up the loose ends. We're repacking our bag. Maybe we've checked our trip details.

A part of us is already home. The ending is underway. Maybe we've been somewhere for a long time and right now we're realizing that. All of the souvenirs we've bought or things we've accumulated in our temporary home just can't come with us. There's not room. Or maybe there are mementos from this journey or things that we wanna experience and gather one last time and make sure we keep and carry with us before we leave.

The entire autumn season is going to be an invitation to release and to focus only on what is essential, and that work begins now. What is it that is absolutely necessary to fit into our pack and bring home, and what is it that needs to be left behind in the lands of the spring and summer left behind where we made our pilgrimage?

Maybe like me, you've had kids out of school all summer and the daily schedule just got totally. Wiped out or turned upside down where there's no routine. And now that journey through the summer period, that different tempo has come to an end, and now you can come back home to yourself, to the ground, to the daily rhythms that are steady.

Consistent and life-giving. Maybe you were swept up in a romance this summer and now it's time to see if that big love can withstand the necessities of the daily life. The cold, the dark, the inward pull. So whatever energy got large this summer is ready to wane now, and that's not a bad thing. That waning is going to show us what is truly strong enough to make it through the dark part of the year.

What will actually sustain us? Is it this love? I met that came into being this summer. Is it that routine that I've committed to and was trying, is it still working for me? So right now, we can just do a little bit of internal work to ensure that what we're packing up right now is what we really need to bring home into the fall season.

This late summer period has been the Earth Elements season, and the earth element is one of five elements that I covered in depth in episode 152. If you wanna go back to that, and one of the primary messages of the Earth element at this point in the seasonal cycle is that now is a time to start over.

To take things down to the foundations and decide what is actually stable and worth building again, maybe some of your daily habits used to be sturdy enough for you, or you're coming back and you thought you were gonna have the same daily routine as you did last autumn, or in the winter, in the spring, before the summer, but now your body or your spirit craves something different.

Let yourself start over. Start over with a different morning routine, a different sleep schedule, a different daily rhythm, different foods that you want to eat. Maybe you know that your weekly schedule is just grinding you down and you cannot keep going at this pace. Let yourself imagine starting over from zero again.

What kind of schedule or rhythm would you build in its place? Now is an excellent time for rituals that are about starting over in the earthy day to day of your life. If you're in work every day that you just resent, or that you dread or despise, dig a hole in the earth and scream about how you feel.

Tell the earth what it feels like to have to do this every day. Decide that you will give it to the Earth and you will ask for help composting it, allowing it to become something different. Commit to the idea that this autumn could be the time when you stop clinging on to that work so that something new can come in its place.

You don't have to know what it will be to begin surrendering it. And starting over I think is a very natural process, but it has also like pretty much everything been co-opted and manipulated and made weird inside of capitalist culture because in capitalist culture it is always time to disrupt things.

We. Lift up and turn into Gods people, men, technocrats, who are all about disrupting the natural systems or the way things have been done. Disruption, disruption. Disruption. Start it over. Build something different. Till that soil strip, the land strip everything of its roots. And that's not what I'm talking about.

That's not the kind of starting over I'm talking about where it's just disruption for disruption's sake without any real wisdom or appreciation for the rootedness that's needed in a certain thing. What I'm talking about is the natural order of beginning again, that we see among the plants that are dropping their leaves, the flowers that are all brown now that have dropped their buds, the Canadian geese that are leaving their nesting grounds to migrate and began again somewhere else.

Natural movement, taking things down to their essentials so that you can fortify yourself. And a huge block to doing that work is the mind is the story that we can't start over. I can't remake my schedule. I can't end this relationship. I can't end that practice or that pattern. It's too ingrained, it's too strong, it's too built up, or I shouldn't start over.

That's irresponsible. By giving yourself permission to start over in the ways that feel maybe not comfortable or easy, but natural necessary, it can actually happen gracefully, slowly, even gently. Again, not comfortable or easy, but starting over in alignment with the earth element in alignment with the late summer period.

Does not have to cause a huge rupture. In fact, this practice can prevent huge ruptures. Coming further down the line, I write a monthly behind the scenes report for Eagle Creek members. And recently for the September report, I shared that I was feeling this need to start over in some way. I was feeling a lot of crunchiness about the schedule I have planned for the autumn season because it's very full.

I like to be really busy in the autumn. It feels natural and it's what I wanna do, and that's why I make sure I get time to rest in the summer period. But I was feeling like unmoored or like just, yeah, crunchy around it. So I sat down and I meditated and I thought about it and I gave myself permission to start over.

Okay. I felt like the schedule was too much. I, it felt like too much to hold. So what would it look like if I canceled everything, if I had no obligations and I just started from a completely blank schedule as much as I could, knowing I can't change like. Drop off and pick up times for my kids or things that are outside of my control.

But I have a lot of control in my work, so I gave myself permission to just start over. And what I realized when I imagined building a different schedule from scratch, or deciding to do different offerings or different timelines, I realized that. I actually didn't wanna build something different. I really like what I've planned for the autumn season.

I want the classes and programs to fill as they are. That feels like the fruit that has come in. And the autumn season will be about. Harvesting and the right people finding those containers and settling in and us doing that work together. And this only came because I gave myself permission to even entertain the idea of starting over, which is really scary.

You know, the mind gets very loud about that. But by giving myself permission to start over, I realized actually that's not where I wanna start over. I like the schedule that I have set. I realized that what is. Feeling problematic or causing crunchiness is the fact that this, um. New office that I have been working with and my spouse, we've been converting our greenhouse into a new home for a wild new work that's not ready yet.

And I thought it was gonna be ready in time for, I mean, I thought it was gonna be ready in June, but as these things go, it's not. And I thought it was gonna be ready by the time for our class on September 18th, and it's not going to be. And so I realized the crunchiness I was feeling, the, the worry, the resistance I was feeling was because the container that I have imagined myself being in the new home for this work where I could stretch out and teach and grow in a different way.

That's not ready yet, and it will be soon, but. That's really where the, where some tending was needed that I'm feeling like I don't have a solid, sturdy place within which to do this work like I had expected. So. By giving myself permission to start over in the area that I thought I was gonna start over in, I saw that there was a different opportunity for attending and care and for my needs to be met, to feel safe and sturdy.

If I hadn't done that and really investigated, I might have gone on and just complained a lot about my schedule or made changes that actually weren't. In alignment with the deeper need I was feeling. So it saved me from a big rupture that might have been harmful in the end. So whatever it is for you, whatever place in your life is feeling crunchy or like, I don't wanna do that, or something is not working there, I hope you will give yourself permission to even just imagine.

Starting over in some area and see what you find. You don't actually have to do it. I'm not saying that you have to go nuclear and begin something completely over and you know, throw it all to hell and disrupt it all. But what if you just allowed yourself to ask the question, what would it look like to give this away?

To bring it down, to start over, wipe the slate clean. And if you're feeling this need really strongly right now, you could make it a practice too, every day. Between now and the autumn equinox, imagine starting over. Imagine starting fresh in a certain area of your life, and I bet it would show you a lot about what's ready to fall away this autumn season.

So depending on where you are in the world, this time between the summer and autumn can be incredibly beautiful and poignant. I encourage you to watch the plants, the fungi, the animals at this time, and see. What they're doing right now, how they don't seem to panic about the death and the quiet to come.

They know it's necessary. They know they can't change it. They know how to adapt, how to let the autumn season live through them, and we can mimic that. We can do the same. We can be. Part of the great chorus of the autumn season, and it may not always be like sweet and nice and graceful. You know, if you are around bees at this time, then you know that in the autumn they get very aggressive.

They're noticeably more aggressive than they are at other points in the year, and that's because they don't have any time to waste. Now that's the honey stores have to be built up and secured in order for their colony to survive through the winter. So that can be a part of this time as well. Less tolerance for bullshit.

Less tolerance for people coming into your hive or getting in your way as you're trying to collect the remaining nectar that's here. That is okay. That can be part of this too. But what if we became a people that the autumn season could live through in some way? Imagine if we collectively focused on harvesting what was necessary, let go of the doing of things that weren't actually helpful.

What if we let go of the pushing, the buying, choosing to harvest, what. Is already gifted to us. Choosing to feel like this is actually enough. I have actually done enough what is here right now. What if we became a people who were ready to grieve in the dark of this season? Who were ready to accept death, our death, the death of all things, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

What if we were a people willing to go to bed early? To prepare for the limits that the winter season will bring. If we were a people who really lived the autumn season, I think capitalism, war, genocide, these things would be much less likely to come to life if we were living in this kind of a rhythm with autumnal priorities around the globe.

All of us doing this in the way that made sense. In the landscapes that we are on, in alignment with the cultures that we are a part of, that we carry in us. So living the autumn can be an incredible blessing to you personally, and I believe it has ripple effects that will help this hurting world and that work can be done.

In a profoundly beautiful way in its reds and oranges and browns, in its spices and the warmth of the autumn season, it can be beautiful. Even in the midst of the pain that it might bring, or the aggression or defensiveness, or the feelings of needing to do a lot and needing to draw different boundaries.

It can all be a part of this beautiful. Song. So that's what I wanted to share with you today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode and are feeling excited for the autumn season and the autumn season of this show. If you would like to go deeper, the Autumn edition of The Living the Seasons Journal is here for you.

You can come to a class this autumn. The first one is on September 18th, but there will be two more and you can learn more about those at a wild new work.com/events. If you're hungry for the big work of this autumn season, I welcome you into the Min for more container, the small group, or the one-on-one process, and I also welcome you into the Composting capitalism class that begins October 1st.

You can learn more about all of these things at a wild new work.com and at the links in the show notes. Thank you again to members of Eagle Creek who are helping to make this work sustainable and available to all people. I hope you take such good care as we cross the autumn equinox, and I will see you on the other side.

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